


Speak (Ball of Sunshine)

by merpwrites



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Some bullying, but with vague details, lots of descriptions of anxiety, selective mutism, some sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 03:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4771433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merpwrites/pseuds/merpwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he thought about it, Sean realized that a lot of things could be traced back to second grade. 'Spoole', for one. His love of games, for another. Second grade can, arguably, be where his love of hats started as well. His mother will fight him on this, because she insists that he was very much a 'hat baby', but what exactly constitutes a hat baby when most babies have to wear hats?</p>
<p>Most importantly, though, was probably the whole not-talking thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak (Ball of Sunshine)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in response to this: ruvic.co.vu/post/122059131587/  
> I was really jazzed at the idea of selectively mute Spoole. So thanks to puertoraycan and caboohoo, you people are super rad. 
> 
> Fair warning: Most of, if not all, of Sean's life story I made up for the sake of story. However, the descriptions of selective muteness and anxiety come from the personal experiences of myself and a few friends. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It all started in second grade.

When he thought about it, Sean realized that a lot of things could be traced back to second grade. “Spoole”, for one. His love of games, for another (X-Wing and Myst and the SNES had some good things going for it and yeah, maybe there were some games that yeah, maybe a seven year old shouldn’t play but Sean wasn’t going to blame anyone, necessarily, for it got him into gaming and, tangentially, many years later, got him to the seriously awesome job he has now). Second grade can, arguably, be where his love of hats started, as well. His mother will fight him on this, because she insists that he was very much a “hat baby”, but what exactly constitutes a hat baby when most babies  _have_ to wear hats because either the sun is too strong or it is too cold?

Most importantly, though, was probably the whole not-talking thing.

See, the thing about it is that with being from a small town in a state not necessarily known for its booming population, everyone kind of knew each other from the moment they start school. Therefore, although he  _had_  friends – two of them, and they were good friends at that, and various cousins and such that were also in the area and around his age – he also had quite a few…well,  _not_  friends. He didn’t like to call them enemies, because they really weren’t. “Enemies” is a title that implies that both parties had problems with each other. Sean didn’t really have a problem with the other kids. He just preferred to play by himself, or talk to his small group of friends, and  _not_ engage in big group activities. In first grade, this wasn’t much of a problem. The teacher’s too busy teaching you to write and read and  _not_ be a sack of potatoes to do a whole bunch of group work.

_Second grade_ , however, introduces a level of “activity” previously unknown to seven-year-old Sean. And that activity was called small group reading.

The concept was simple, and ingenious, really, if Sean was not, well,  _Sean._ The class was divided into groups of four, and four times a week one of the kids in each group read a story of their choosing to the other three. Ideally, it was supposed to help children learn things like grammar and such on their own, without the hand-holding of an adult. Unfortunately, when the teacher decided these groups, Sean’s friends were put in a group without Sean. This initial disappointment didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time, and Sean shrugged it off when his friends gave him sympathetic looks.

In retrospect, the Oxford Dictionary can use that precise moment as their definition of  _foreshadowing_.

The second month of school (October) was when small group reading began, and on Friday – the fourth day, Sean had volunteered to go last in the cycle (if “not saying a single word while the other children hashed out the plan and just nodding in agreement when asked for input” counts as volunteering) – Sean had to bring in a book. At a loss for what to bring, he asked his mother to pick one for him. She, of course, picked Paddington Bear, which although Sean outwardly scowled at, he also recognized it as a good book with lots of colorful pictures and really, the past three days all the kids brought in Dr. Seuss books so a change of pace was appreciated.

Sean wasn’t necessarily the best reader in the class, but when his parents and grandparents weren’t telling him to go outside to play, they were telling him to stay inside to read and write and add and subtract and generally make sure he knew what he was doing when he went to class (they were only expecting him to try his best, they assured him, but directly proportional to “trying his best” was the fact that his best would keep getting better if they had him learn at home  _and_ at school. Quite the loophole for getting their kids to achieve and be stellar academically, if you ask Sean).

So although he wasn’t the biggest fan of having to read to these kids that really weren’t his friends for thirty minutes on Friday afternoon, he also wasn’t all too perturbed about it. He could read Paddington Bear just fine, thank you, and then he could tell his friends how he read a harder book than the others in his group did and yeah, they’d laugh a little at their expense but it wouldn’t be  _malicious_. Sean and his friends had nothing against the other kids, and the other kids had nothing against Sean.

The moment he started reading, however, that changed.

“What’s wrong with your voice?” One of the kids, a boy named Ben, blurted out before Sean was even finished the first page of Paddington Bear. The other two children, Jeremy and Lisa, snickered at Sean’s confused gaze.

“What do you mean?”

“Your voice is all squeaky. You sound funny.” Jeremy stated, Lisa nodding enthusiastically beside him.

“I do not.” Sean protested, folding his arms, Paddington Bear all but forgotten.

“Yes you  _do!_  Your voice sounds all funny. It sounds  _dumb!_ ” Lisa asserted.

Jeremy and Ben exchanged a glance of matching wicked grins before beginning to chant softly: “Sean has a funny voice, Sean has a funny voice!”

Sean felt his face grow hot and he tucked his chin into his chest. He stood there awkwardly, unsure what to do besides stand there and stare at the ground as their chanting grew steadily louder. Thankfully, they caught the attention of only one other small group before the teacher came over and asked why they weren’t reading.

“Sean just dropped the book and lost his place.” Ben said immediately, all three painting innocent expressions onto their faces. Sean just stared at the rainbow carpet squares on the floor.

“Alright, well get back to it, please.” The teacher said before moving on. There was one tense moment of silence before Jeremy kicked the Paddington Bear book towards Sean with the toe of his shiny black sneakers.

“You heard her, dumby, get to reading.” He snarled, and Sean crouched to pick up the book, flipping it open robotically and beginning to read in a timid voice. He tried to ignore the snickering of the trio of decidedly not-friends, but his voice kept hitching and stuttering no matter how hard he tried to power through. The call of the teacher saying that it was time for the class to return to their seats was probably the best moment of Sean’s life.

When his mom asked him how the small group liked Paddington Bear, Sean told her that they didn’t have the chance to talk about the book before that part of class ended. It wasn’t a lie, he told himself as he lied wide-awake in bed that night, he was just leaving out some details. 

* * *

Sean hoped, in vain, that it was a one-time thing. He forgot all about it over the course of the weekend. On Monday, however, the trio had spread the word to all their friends that Sean Poole had a dumb voice, and little comments were shot at him as he walked onto the bus that morning.

“What’s wrong, Spoole?” His friend and seat buddy, Charlie, asked upon seeing his downcast eyes and slight frown.

“Nothing.” Sean said, sitting down next to the other boy.

“Hey, Charlie, do you think my voice sounds funny?” Sean asked a few minutes later, voice low and eyes darting.

Charlie’s face scrunched together, “Whaddya mean?”

“Like, does it sound dumb?”

“No, it doesn’t sound dumb. It’s different from my voice, but we’re not the same. I don’t think your voice is funny.” Charlie said after a moment, staring intently at the side of Sean’s head, since the other boy refused to look up from his hands.

“Okay.” Sean said, shooting what he hoped was a smile at his friend. Evidently it failed, because Charlie’s eyebrows just drew further down his forehead.

“Why’d you ask, Sean?”

“I –“ Sean was cut off by the bus driver announcing their arrival at school and the influx of kids suddenly pouring into the aisle and out into the cold, October air. Sean ignored the call of “Spoole!” from his friends and trudged into the building with his head down, going straight to the classroom and plopping down into his seat. The teacher always gave morning work, and as soon as you sat down you had to start it, so Charlie – and their other friend, of whom Sean was sure Charlie already told of their bus conversation – couldn’t pester Sean as to why he asked such a peculiar question.

* * *

Thankfully, small group reading didn’t happen on Mondays, and come Tuesday, Sean discovered that as long as he kept quiet, the teasing was minimal. With this newfound fact, Sean was rightly terrified on Friday when he was  _required_  to read again. He picked a much shorter story, and although they kept relatively silent during his stuttered reading, they teased him all about it for the following fifteen minutes before small group was over.

Sean started dreading Fridays, when he ultimately had to make a choice: stutter through a longer story or listen to them tease him after a shorter one? And on top of that, he began to be frustrated with himself. He’s read all of these stories before, why is he stuttering through them? The logical part of his brain knew that it had to do with the snickering and hurtful comments his peers taunted him with, but if that was the case, then stuttering wasn’t helping!

Sean just drew further and further into himself. By the end of October, his friends finally heard the taunting as it happened and realized why he had asked Charlie if he thought his voice was dumb. They did everything they could to stay with Sean throughout the day (not that it wasn’t much of a change. The three of them spent lunch and recess together every day anyway). Sean was happy that his friends would try to make him feel better by telling him that the other students were wrong, that his voice  _wasn’t_ funny or dumb, but as the days went by, Sean found it harder and harder to believe. Come December, his family was starting to notice the change in behavior and how on Friday mornings he always seemed to mysteriously feel ill. Upon questioning, Sean denied that anything was wrong vehemently. He didn’t know what to do to stop the teasing, but he knew that the moment his mother got involved, it would become two  _thousand_ times worse.

* * *

Winter break came and went, and the day before school started up again in January, Sean’s grandfather pulled him aside from where he was playing in the backyard with his cousins.

“What’s wrong, Grandpa?” Sean asked, staring up at the old man. His grandfather’s brow crinkled and his thin lips drew down into a frown.

“What’s got your goat, Sean? Something’s eating you up.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Sean responded, immediately casting his eyes down to his shuffling feet. He trained his eyes on the cold January sun streaming through the window and onto the floor in front of him, toeing at it with his scuffed up shoes.

“Yes, something’s wrong, and you and I both know it.” His grandfather insisted, placing one heavy hand on his small shoulder and bending down to Sean’s level, “You know you can tell me anything, kiddo.”

“I know. It’s just – some kids at school.” Sean admitted in a small voice, wringing his hands together and finally looking up into his Grandfather’s big, brown eyes.

“Say no more.” His grandfather stood on crackling knees and steered Sean in the direction of the coat closet. He opened the door and reached up onto the highest hook. A faded greenish-gray hat was pulled off the hook and set down onto Sean’s head.

“What’s this?” Sean asked, pushing up on the bill.

“I would wear this hat when I was young and I needed a bit of a pick-me-up. Called it my courage hat. I know you kids can’t wear hats in school, but maybe if you take it with you, it’ll give you a little bit of courage.” Sean’s grandfather smiled down at him, and Sean took the hat off his head and clutched it to his chest for a moment before throwing himself at his grandfather, wrapping his arms around the older man’s waist in as big of a hug as he could muster. His grandfather just chuckled and patted Sean’s head, watching the little boy run out the door and, presumably, next door to his own house to stick the “courage hat” into his backpack.

After his initial excitement, Sean became a little skeptical of the courage hat come that Friday when it was his turn to read again and it felt like all seven of Snow White’s dwarves were mining in his stomach. But he trudged on, rubbing the hat for a little bit of courage before walking over to the rainbow carpet to start small group reading.

And remarkably, it worked! Sean barely stuttered at all, and with no new ammunition to fuel the taunts of the trio, their snide remarks fell on deaf ears. It was all the same old stuff! Sean admonished them for their lack of new material to his friends during lunch.

Of course, this was Sean’s life, and with Sean’s luck, everything went downhill a few weeks later.

The teacher had announced that February was “show and tell” month. Sean had no idea what to show  _or_  tell, but in a stroke of genius, his father suggested he tell them all about his hat (of which Sean had taken to wearing nearly 24/7 outside of school).

Sean waltzed into class after lunch on the day that it was his turn for show and tell, hat on his head. The teacher told him to walk to the front of the room and tell the class about his show and tell item.

“This is my hat.” Sean told the class, pointing to his head, “My grandfather gave it to me. It used to be his. He calls it the courage hat, because it give you courage.” He said proudly, smiling at the class. The class applauded politely and Sean took his seat, hat still planted firmly on his head. The teacher then proceeded to drone on about multiplication for thirty minutes before dismissing them for recess. It was still cold, so they stayed inside. Sean stood from his chair, turning to join his friends at Charlie’s desk to continue their heated Star Wars debate from lunch when he felt his hat being pulled off his head.

“Hey!” He exclaimed, whipping around and reaching for it, but it was held just out of reach by none other than Ben.

“Courage hat? How stupid could you get,  _Sean_?” He snarled, keeping the hat high out of Sean’s reach.

“G-give it back!” Sean pleaded, but Ben just laughed.

“You’re such a dumby! Dumb voice, dumb hat, dumb face! No one likes a dumby.” Ben jeered.

“I think we should help him, Ben. Make him less dumb.” Lisa said, appearing on the right and holding a pair of scissors.

Ben’s eyes glinted and he grabbed the scissors, “You’re right, Lisa!” Ben took the scissors to the hat, ignoring Sean’s protests and grabbing hands. When the scissors proved to do little besides rip the hat, he angrily threw the hat on the ground and stomped on it.

“ _No!_ ” Sean tried to shout, but instead all his voice did was crack and break. The others laughed at him, asking if a cat got his tongue, but it was enough to catch his friends’ attention.

“Hey, leave him alone, Ben!” Charlie demanded, marching forward and pushing Ben back. Ben grabbed onto Charlie’s arms, pulling him down to the floor with him. This instigated an all-out brawl. Sean bent and picked up his hat as the teacher hurriedly rushed over, shouting at the two to break it up and pulling Charlie off of Ben.

Seeing his hat muddy and ripped, Sean’s eyes started to sting. He felt the tears running down his cheeks, saw the growing wet spot on his hat, but he couldn’t bring himself to move, to wipe the tears away. Even when the teacher crouched down to his level and asked him what was wrong, all he could do was stare at her, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Why wouldn’t his voice work? Why couldn’t he move? Sean stared into middle distance, terrified, as the teacher bundled him up into her arms and carried him out of the classroom. He felt himself being handed to someone else, and soon he recognized the white walls and smiling “Get well soon!” poster hanging on the wall of the nurse’s office.

Sean stared wide-eyed at every adult who tried to talk to him. Gradually, he got his arms to move again and wiped away his tears, but every time he tried to answer a question, his chest would constrict, his throat would feel sandpaper dry, and no words would come out.

Eventually, his mother came rushing in and scooped him up in her arms. Sean threw his arms around her neck and buried his face into her shoulder as she immediately began berating the adults (he would later find out that it was the principal and a guidance counselor). It was all  _how could you let this happen_  and  _Sean must have hit his breaking point_  and  _we’ve seen him withdrawing, this must be why_  and Sean just tried his hardest to ignore her and think about something else, anything else besides the ruined hat still clutched in his hand and how he cried in front of Ben and Lisa and everyone and how  _oh no now everyone will think I’m a crybaby_.

He wound up falling asleep in his mother’s arms, and, upon waking up around dinner time, was told that he didn’t have to go to school for the rest of the week. Remarkably, when Sean went to ask what was going to happen to his hat, his words came to him, clear as day. Sean’s mother assured him that his hat had just gotten cleaned and that his grandfather had taken it to sew the rip up.

* * *

Sean was reluctant to go back to school on Monday, to put it nicely, but his mom made him French toast and told him that if anyone said one mean word to him they would get into a  _lot_ of trouble, so he should be in the clear.

Getting on the bus that morning was hard, though. Sean’s legs felt kind of heavy, and the loud chattering of the students already seated on the bus seemed amplified. Sean resisted the urge to cover his ears as he sat down in his normal seat next to Charlie, who was sporting a dark bruise under his eye.

“Hey, Spoole, you okay?” Charlie asked as Sean sat down.

“I should be asking you that!” Sean exclaimed, pointing to Charlie’s cheek.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get in trouble and Ben did, so I think it’s okay.” Charlie admitted with a grin, laughing when Sean’s face lit up.

“Ben got in trouble?”

“Yeah, I heard he can’t come back to school until Thursday.”

Sean brightened at that, although the bus was still too loud and his legs were still too heavy.

The feeling only increased as he sat down in his seat, noting that his nametag and all of his things had been moved to the other side of the classroom, so he was now sitting on the end of a row right next to Charlie. The teacher smiled at him before she began her lessons for the day. When it got to small group, she approached Sean and asked him if he was okay with being a part of a different group. He went to say yes, but suddenly it felt like an elephant was stepping on his chest and all he could do was whisper out a pitiful ‘okay’. The teacher looked at him strangely, then told him he could choose his new group. Sean, obviously, nearly skipped over to where Charlie and their other friend Roger were sitting, announcing upon his arrival that the teacher had told him he could pick a new group. Sean got hi-fives from his friends for that.

On Thursday, Sean and Charlie walked into the classroom to see Ben already at his seat. Sean’s feet immediately decided that now would be a good time to stop working and his heart hammered in his chest.

Charlie kept walking a few steps before he realized his friend was no longer beside him. He turned and walked back, slinging an arm across the smaller boy’s shoulders.

“C’mon, Spoole, he’ll get in big trouble if he messes with you.” Charlie assured him, and Sean’s legs started moving again, but his chest still felt tight and heavy. The feeling didn’t go away all day, and when his mom asked him at dinner how school went that day, he told her that. He had learned his lesson about not telling people things. His parents immediately exchanged a worried glance, and on Wednesday, his mom told him that they were going to visit a special doctor on Saturday.

Now, Sean was not stupid, and he knew that this had to do with his heavy chest and dragging feet and missing voice and suddenly sensitive ears, but Sean did not tell his mother that.

* * *

On Saturday, they drove thirty minutes to the next town over, and a nice-looking older woman who smelled like cinnamon introduced herself as Dr. Teller to Sean’s mom and Suzy to Sean. Sean immediately stuck his hand out and told her it was nice to meet her, just like he had been taught, but he surprised himself at how meek he sounded. His chest didn’t even hurt! Yeah, he was nervous about the woman, and his stomach felt like he was afraid, all butterflies and dwarves with pickaxes and the like, but his mother had told him in the car ride over that she was a nice and helpful person, so  _why on earth_  was he afraid?

Suzy told him to sit down in a really,  _really_ squishy brown chair that he had to climb up onto because it was too big for him, and asked him lots of questions about Ben and Lisa and their teasing and his feelings. As the minutes ticked by, Sean felt the butterflies stop fluttering and pickaxes stop pounding and his voice came back.

Sean then spent the next three weeks getting up at 9 AM on Saturday morning to go with his mom to talk to Suzy for an hour. He didn’t really understand why he was going to see Suzy every week, because after that first session they didn’t really talk about Ben or the Hat Incident. They just kind of talked about life and school and his friends and his family. His mom never stayed in the room after that first time, either. She either left to run errands or would sit in the coffee shop across the street and wait for the hour to be up.

The fifth week Sean went to Suzy, she asked his mom to stay and she told them all about social anxiety. Sean, who had been doing everything in his power to  _not_  talk to anyone but his friends at school, didn’t quite know what anxiety was, but the feelings that Suzy described definitely fit how he felt. At one point, Sean looked over at his mom and saw that her eyes were shiny and her nose was red. He wanted to ask why she looked like she was going to cry, but stopped himself because Suzy was still talking and he had been chastised at the dinner table the night before about interrupting people while they’re talking.

That afternoon, his mom took him for ice cream and bought him a hat – this one was a mossy green and fit his head much better than the courage hat, which had been retired to his night stand (and occasionally his backpack when he knew that he would have to talk at school that day).

It would be years before Sean understood why his mother had cried that day, for while he was kicking his legs and feeling better because Suzy was describing what he had been going through, he had missed the two vital words that had hit his mother the hardest:  _selective mutism_. 

* * *

Sean spent the rest of his school life just kind of  _existing_. He had his friends, and he had his hats, and he had his video games. But he was forever known as the “quiet kid”, “Spoole, the kid who gets out of presentations”, “Sean, the guy who never talks”. People would pick on him for being quiet, but when they got no retaliation, they quickly got bored and moved on. Joke was on them, though, because when confronted with that, Sean  _couldn’t_ retaliate. His chest would just constrict and he knew, just  _knew_  that even if he tried to talk, no sound would come out, so he would just stand there and wait for them to stop with an elephant on his chest and his feet feeling like lead, and when they would turn away, he would wait a few minutes until the elephant slowly lifted and he could move again. As he got older, his feet stopped feeling like lead, and he found that he was able to push past kids that decided to pester him. This was an amazing development for Sean, whose life had just gotten a little bit easier – or at least, that’s what Suzy told him that meant.

Going out into the real world was hard.  _Really fucking hard._ But at that point, he had discovered that while his social anxiety ran rampant in person, he was actually pretty decent at answering phones and talking to people online. Thusly, he landed a couple of odd jobs in call centers and tech support (yes, no real people!) and spent his nights playing Ultima and Warcraft with his friends. The job, although there was no real people and therefore he could comfortably pretend he was a normal person and  _not_ someone who had voice-stealing anxiety as soon as he was in a social situation, was not exactly where he wanted to end up for the rest of his life.

* * *

The day that he told his mom he was going to go to school for television, her eyes went wide as saucers.

“Are you sure, Sean? I mean, you can do whatever you want, but that’s not the best idea with your health.” She said. She always called it his “health”. When he was younger, Sean appreciated the way that she phrased it, but now that he was an adult he thought that the tip-toeing around it was more frustrating than anything else.

“Yes, mom, I’m sure. I’m better now than I used to be, you know that. I want to end up getting into film or editing one day, and this is the most logical way to do it.” He insisted.

And he was right. It was really tough, and there were multiple times where he had borderline painful conversations in which he used a combination of writing things down and whispering to explain why he suddenly looked like he saw a ghost and couldn’t speak. He lost count of how many times his professors – directly or otherwise – told him that they didn’t think this field was for him. He used every coping mechanism he could think of (mostly wearing hats and playing video games to de-stress) and eventually made it to his final semester: the internship. Perhaps the most important part. Definitely the most stressful part. And although no one told him directly, Sean  _knew_  that the internship he was given was one-hundred-percent because they wanted him to see that he  _couldn’t_ do it.

Sean was determined to prove them wrong.

* * *

That is, until he walked in day one and it was immediately like he was seven years old and getting on the too-loud bus again. Everyone was moving, darting this way and that, some people were over in the corner shouting at each other, waving scripts in their hands. Sean conveniently forgot who he was supposed to talk to and where he was supposed to go and just stood there, hat firmly placed on his head and hands shaking in his pockets.

“Yo, you the intern?” Someone shouted at him, and suddenly he was eye-to-chest with a guy who looked like he just needed a nap.

Sean looked up at him and nodded.

“Great, you’re actually on time. Welcome to G4 and Attack of the Show. Your first task is to deliver all of this coffee to make-up. Go down this hall here, make a left at the first hallway you come across, then it’s your second door on the right. Don’t worry about passing out the orders, just come back here when you’re done and I’ll give you something else to do, okay?”

Sean nodded again, the guy shoved the coffee into his waiting arms, and he scurried down the hall.

The guy directing him around turned out to be Bruce Greene, and although neither man knew it at the time, would wind up being one of the most influential people in Sean’s entire life.

The great thing about Bruce was that he pushed Sean the intern, not Sean the person, so if Sean didn’t say a single word to Bruce for the first two weeks of working on AOTS, who was Bruce to pry? However, the first thing Bruce ever heard come out of Sean’s mouth was a hushed  _Oh my god that guy is pretty_ , which promptly got him wheezing. Bruce didn’t even see who Sean was talking about, too busy bent at the waist and laughing way too goddamn hard at this kid with his plaid button-up and brown baseball cap who honestly couldn’t be  _that_  much younger than Bruce but he looked so damn young that Bruce just automatically called him kid in his mind.

Needless to say, Sean immediately flushed pink and refused to tell Bruce who he was talking about, but Sean was eternally thankful that Bruce’s teasing was lighthearted, short-lived, and most importantly, not concerned about the specific word choice Sean used (i.e. “guy”. Sean was  _very_  happy that Bruce did not comment on the distinctively  _male_  noun. Ten points to Bruce for not being an asshole).

The internship didn’t necessarily get  _easier_  after that, but Sean found that the wheeze-laugh fart machine that was Bruce Greene certainly made it a little more bearable. Bruce didn’t ask him why it took him two weeks to say a single word. When Sean had a particularly anxiety-ridden day, Bruce didn’t push him to talk or asked what was wrong. Bruce just kind of took it all in stride, which Sean was thankful for, because having to explain to the guy that wasn’t-actually-his-boss-but-kind-of-was-his-boss that he had social anxiety  _and_  selective mutism  _and_  wanted to work in television would have been long and strenuous and generally a conversation that would make Sean’s comfort level plummet like an ACME weight through the floor.

And when Sean’s internship ended and he graduated and then got lucky enough to get  _hired_  onto AOTS, well, the celebratory drinks he had with Bruce that night at a quiet little bar (oxymoron, but somehow was an actual thing that happened) in West Hollywood definitely solidified the friendship. And, as Sean would find out later is a recurring trend, with Bruce came James Willems. Maybe it was because he was a friend of Bruce’s, maybe it was because he wasn’t a  _complete_  stranger, since they both worked at G4 on Attack of the Show, maybe it was the couple of beers in his system, but whatever it was it made James easier to talk to. Yeah, he was painfully quiet, but the debilitating fear had lifted enough for him to be able to exchange words and even – dare he say it –  _enjoy_ himself in the presence of Bruce and James riffing off of each other like it was their job (later it would become their job, but no one knew that yet).

G4 wound up being a good place for Sean. He could do behind the scenes stuff, work on his editing skills and also his camera-operating skills. No one really cared that he didn’t talk much, and those who did just kind of stayed away from him. If he was having a bad day, he could just shove his hat further down on his head and immerse himself in work. The craziness and shouting from his first day of his internship turned out to be much more of a rarity than expected, to which Sean was obviously very grateful, because big loud things still set him on edge, and so did lots of people. And yeah, it was a lot of people, but it was a lot of people Sean saw  _every damn day._ It didn’t necessarily make his anxiety better, or easier to handle, but the fact that no one really expected him to do a lot of talking certainly made it a bit more convenient.

* * *

But, just like everything else in Sean’s life, all the good shit has to come to an end, and AOTS’s life was at its end, and Bruce told Sean over lunch one day that he had a job lined up at Machinima and “You should be looking for jobs, too, Spoole” and Sean’s entire existence suddenly seemed to be closing in on him because  _if Bruce is gone, if G4 is gone, what am I going to do?_

He must've said it out loud, because suddenly Bruce had a very concerned look on his face and was reassuring him that life had a funny way of working out and that Bruce could see if they’re looking for someone with Spoole’s skillset over at Machinima.

Sean just shook his head. He couldn’t piggyback off of Bruce forever.

“Spoole, I won’t even put any sort of anything in for you, I’ll just check and see if there’s a position so you can adjust your resume accordingly if you apply for it, alright? I’m not gonna just leave you hanging, you’re my friend.” Bruce said, and Sean reluctantly agreed because Bruce was right, they  _were_ friends. So when Bruce came back a couple weeks later and said that Machinima was looking to hire someone with PA experience (which was Sean’s current job and involved more talking but again, the G4 people knew him by now and knew not to expect much talking-wise), Sean, for once in his life, did not hesitate applying for the job.

Maybe it was fate, maybe it was Bruce (and James!) encouraging him, maybe it was the fact that they had just had a final wrap party on AOTS (that Sean did  _not_ attend but got multiple drunk voicemails from Bruce and James giving him play-by-play updates on how the party was going), but Sean was determined to get this Machinima job.

It took them a whole  _month_  to get back to him – which really isn’t a long time if you think about it, but for Sean was a  _long time –_ but Sean got a call from Machinima. And a call lead to a phone interview. And lead to another call, a “we would like to hire you when can you start” call. And Sean thanked every deity, god, and star in the universe that they skipped an in-person interview.

At the time, it was amazing.

In retrospect, Bruce probably had a say in it.

* * *

Sean’s relationship with Bruce and James was strange because he never actually  _told_  them about his social anxiety and selective mutism but they still  _knew_. He could tell they knew by the way that they acted as buffers for his first few weeks at Machinima, even though they themselves hadn’t been there very long either. He could tell by the way they would watch him and his body movements, and on days it was just too much they would make excuses for him to get the fuck out of dodge. It was a whole bunch of little shit, really, and Sean couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or on instinct or a little bit of both but he knew that his mother loved them to pieces even though she’d never met them and in the end, if your mother approves, they have to be good friends, right? Right.

Sean met a whole bunch of people in succession at Machinima. Not everyone took very kindly to his lack of verbal communication and sudden need to leave a room/conversation/situation without so much as an acknowledgement of the fact that he is  _leaving_  and he is leaving  _now_.

But most of the people didn’t care, and some – for the same inexplicable reason he was friends with Bruce and James – actually liked him and befriended him? Like Adam, for example, who upon meeting Sean immediately asked “Did you work at G4? You look really familiar” and when Sean nodded he just shrugged and gave an explanation of “Don’t worry, I already did this to Bruce a couple months ago”.

It took Sean an embarrassingly long amount of time to get comfortable enough to hold a real conversation with Adam (not for Adam’s lack of trying. He wasn’t purposefully putting Sean on the spot or anything). Adam insists it’s because he’s fierce and intimidating. Sean can’t bear to admit to him that his resting bitchface just made him seem too unapproachable, even though Bruce and James constantly assured him that he was a great guy and a real sweetheart once you get past the fact that he looks “insanely pissed, like, all the time”.

Sean’s first encounter with Joel was much more – well the best word to describe it would be  _memorable_. The man had walked past Sean’s desk one day, stopped, backtracked, picked up a small Warcraft figurine Sean had sitting next to his monitors, promptly introduced himself as Joel and launched into a (very one-sided) hour-long discussion about the evolution of World of Warcraft and MMOs as a whole. Sean’s anxiety couldn’t have stopped him from laughing at this skinny, smartly-dressed man gushing about WoW if he  _wanted_  it to. It took him a couple weeks to get up to full sentences around Joel, but the older man didn’t seem to mind holding the conversation all on his own.

And eventually, he met Lawrence in arguably some of the most inconvenient circumstances ever for someone with social anxiety. He had woken up jittery and nervous – just one of  _those_  days – and because of this he had been purposely avoiding people all morning. They were starting to pack up to move offices (which meant having to interact with moving people) and Sean was going to be thrown into a new office configuration with different people (which just screamed uncomfortable situation from the highest rooftops in LA). Basically, just all-around not good. It was only a couple weeks before the big move when the seating arrangements were finalized that it was discovered by his friends that he had never “formally” met Lawrence. Yeah, they had crossed paths, and yeah, he was positive they both knew who the other was, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for the guys. It was Adam that decided it would be a great idea to just shove the two of them bodily towards each other after lunch and hope for the best. Sean’s chest constricted and he fought the urge to run from this tall, vaguely Clark Kent-looking man when Lawrence sighed, adjusted his glasses, and said:

“It’s nice to meet you formally, Spoole, I’m Lawrence. I’m sorry Adam’s a dick, but neither of us were prepared for this interaction and I have a lot of work to do, so I’ll see you around, okay?”

Sean barely had a chance to nod before Lawrence was walking away, back to his desk, and Sean could breathe again.

“Great job, Spoole, that went a lot better than I thought it would’ve.” Adam said, patting Sean on the shoulder casually as he walked past.

If Kovic’s chair was drenched in glitter and his monitors stuck on a slideshow of unflattering pictures of Nicholas Cage when he came into work the next morning, then who was to blame, really, but Adam himself? (Actually it was 100% Spoole but Lawrence personally walked up to him that afternoon and congratulated him on it so that was basically how their friendship was built – poking fun at Adam. Actually, everyone particularly enjoyed poking fun at Adam  _including_ Adam  _except_ for Adam. Try explaining that one).

And then Sean met Matt Peake.

And by met, it’s really re-met because, like Adam, they had encountered each other at G4 briefly and, like Adam, they met through Bruce.

Well, more like one of Bruce’s hey-everybody-let’s-go-get-drunk-and-sing-karaoke-bring-your-significant-others-let’s-have-fun nights that everyone originally was terrified of but then Joel started throwing around words like show tunes and bonding and ‘cotillion in high school’ and somehow the attendance instantly skyrocketed (if nothing else, Sean thought, they were fantastic people to befriend due to the entertainment factor).

Now, Sean typically didn’t go to these nights because there were a lot of people and it was very loud and just not his thing. And, thankfully, none of them pressured him into it.  _But_ they were celebrating the fact that they were just cleared to launch an Inside Gaming  _channel_  next month with  _gameplay_ and shit and Sean was having a really,  _really_  good week and decided that he would be okay to go experience karaoke and celebrate for a little while.

He was, decidedly,  _not_ okay.

The guys weren’t doing anything  _bad_ , per say, but they were more raucous than usual and in the dark of the karaoke bar squished into his seat Sean felt like the entire world had decided that he was the new Atlas and the best way to hold up the world was right on the center of his chest. Sean didn’t remember leaving the room but he was suddenly in a too-bright bathroom, leaning up against the sink and breathing heavily.

“Well, at least my fight-or-flight instinct is working tonight.” He muttered to himself, swinging the brim of his hat around backwards and leaning forward to splash too-cold water on his too-warm face. He was acutely aware of what this might look like to an outsider and as he heard the door creak open, for a split second all he could think was  _I hope to God that this isn’t a rapist_ before straightening up and wiping his face off with a paper towel as best he could.

Behind him and slightly to the right was a rather fit guy with curly brown hair and gorgeous brown eyes and  _oh no he’s still extremely pretty._

Now, it’s worth noting that Sean and Matt had actually been working together at Machinima without even realizing it – videos get sent from one person to another all the time depending on who had what workload and where the video needed to get uploaded and what  _type_  of editing was needed and a whole bunch of other bullshit factors.

But somehow, they’d never met (this is an amazing feat, considering Adam and Matt had known each other for  _years_  and Sean actually spent a fair amount of his time with that group of guys. Yeah, they’re loud but they’re funny and weird and Sean’s not  _afraid_ of interacting with them and he’d have to be  _irrevocably_ the stupidest guy on the planet if he passed up that opportunity when it was dropped into his lap).

“Hey, you alright? I saw you get up and leave.” He asked, and the genuine  _concern_  that Sean saw in his eyes via the warped bathroom mirror made him feel  _incredible_. This cute coworker was worried about  _Sean_? Oh, his heart thumped in his chest.

Sean nodded and slowly turned to face him. He didn’t _feel_  afraid, per say, but he  _definitely_  didn’t want to try to talk and then completely make a fool of himself because  _oh my god he’s cute and he’s concerned?_

“Okay, good. I’m Matt, by the way, I don’t think we’ve ever officially met.” Matt said with a smile, and suddenly Sean knew what the kid that turns into a puddle in  _Sky High_  felt like because that smile made him absolutely  _melt_.

“Sean – Spoole. Uh, hi?” Sean managed to stutter out, and  _oh god why am I so awkward_ but Matt just smiled wider. It turns out that smile is infectious, because without realizing it Sean was smiling back, and the bathroom was still too-bright and the fluorescent light did nothing for either man but it didn’t really matter because they were too busy smiling at each other.

“You ready to go back out there, Sean? Or do you need a minute?” Matt asked, and Sean’s face scrunched up.

“What – what do you mean?” Sean finally asked, and Matt suddenly looked down, uncertainty flashing across his face.

“Well, I mean – you seemed uncomfortable out there. Nervous. And I want to make sure you’re okay before either of us leave this bathroom.” Matt admitted.

“Yeah, I – thank you. I’m okay.” Sean said, smiling at the way Matt’s lips quirked up at the ends.

He opened the door Sean, “After you.”

If anyone noticed Sean and Matt walking back together, and how Matt bodily pushed Adam farther into the booth (and thusly making him nearly spill his drink on his wife) to make room for both Matt  _and_ Sean, with Sean on the outside, no one commented.

It wasn’t until Sean was lying awake in his bed that night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the couple that lived in the apartment next door bang that he realized how  _easily_ he talked to Matt. He fell asleep slightly buzzed and with a different kind of feeling in his chest – a much more pleasant feeling.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Sean noticed that Matt – who Adam later told him he had never met because the man was just as quiet as Sean, himself – was around more. The lunch outings the whole Inside Gaming team would go on suddenly included Matt. He would come over to their office to ask questions about videos instead of just sending a text or an email. And if Sean decided that he was going to actually go somewhere or do something with the others, Peake was there as well. Not that anyone minded, everyone was friends with everyone, which was nice, but everyone noticed the change. Sean noticed it, too, and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it – his anxiety wanted to turn it into a bad thing, but for once Sean’s rational mind won out and he just kind of rolled with it. Matt was nice, and funny, and smart, and attractive, and if Sean got to spend time with someone of that glorious combination, well, who was he to turn that down?

What Sean  _didn’t_ notice but everyone else  _did_ was the fact that Sean was more talkative and participatory when Matt was in the room. They made a pact to  _never_  mention it to either Sean or Matt, so as to not ruin it, but if they started inviting each of them to group things and then casually mentioning that the other man was  _also_ invited, no one could blame them.

It still came as an utter surprise to everyone (including Sean, if he’s honest) the day that Sean willingly agreed to be  _in_ a video. James called something out to him, expecting the usual rather quiet response that barely picked up on the mic, but instead Sean pushed off his headphones, walked right over and bent into frame to answer the question. The jump cut placed immediately after was due to the fact that they had to cut out a good ten minutes of the guys balking at Sean. Joel even hugged him.

When they discovered that Sean wasn’t all that scared at being recorded (Sean attributed it to his years and years of experience PC gaming), he started appearing in more videos for IG (and ETC). Yeah, there were days where he was supposed to record something and just  _couldn’t_ , but no one really minded. And no one really commented on the fact that Matt would suddenly appear almost every time Sean was scheduled to record something.

Now, during that entire period of time, Sean and Matt’s friendship was growing, too. Texting, hanging out – they even played games together, which was a feat in amongst itself because Matt has and forever will be a console gamer and Sean was primarily part of the PC master race. But somehow they made it work. Sean just sort of gravitated to Matt without realizing it. He also didn’t realize that Matt was pulled to the ball of sunshine that was Sean Poole just as much. (Matt would swear, years later, that ball of sunshine was an incredibly accurate way to describe Sean. When Sean would refute it with his anxiety and selective mutism, Matt would just shake his head and mutter “absolute ball of sunshine” until Sean relented).

* * *

Thankfully, when IG started getting popular enough to go to conventions, Sean was not included in the roster (except for E3 which he was just there as crew, really). The first convention that they wanted Sean to go to and  _really_ participate in was RTX 2014. Sean was nervous about it, to say the least, because not only was he going to have to talk to and interact with a  _metric shit ton_  of people, but also because this was  _Rooster Teeth_  and he would have to also interact with and make a positive impression on  _them_.

The day before they left for RTX was probably the least productive work day Sean had ever had. There were things to do, videos to edit, but he just  _couldn’t_ bring himself to do it. All he could think about was all of the  _people_ that would be at RTX and how he would have to talk at an actual  _panel_  and  _why did I agree to this oh my god why this is not going to end well –_

“Hey Sean, wanna go to lunch?” Matt’s voice broke through Sean’s mental tantrum. Sean just looked up at the other man, eyes wide and glassy, and didn’t even get a chance to respond before Matt was gently pulling him up and walking him out of the room and the building, all the way to Matt’s car, his hand a warm and steady presence on the small of his back. Sean was pushed softly into the passenger seat and the door was closed and then Matt was climbing into the driver’s seat and starting up the car.

“What’s going on?” Sean asked finally, watching Matt (and the curve of his neck) as he backed the car out of the spot and merged onto the street.

Matt glanced at Sean out of the corner of his eye before focusing on the road, “We’re getting food and then we’re going to the park or someplace nice and quiet or something.”

“Why?”

“Because something has you very upset and being at work is not going to be helpful at all. I’m not telling you to tell me what’s wrong, but I  _am_ going to do everything in my power to help you get away from it, even for a little bit.” Matt said, and the conviction in his voice put Sean at a loss for words.

Matt took them through the drive-thru of a shitty burger joint and they ate their shitty burgers in comfortable silence as Matt drove to a nearby dog park. When he parked the car and took the keys out of the ignition, he just sat there, munching away on slightly too soft fries and squinting at Sean through the sunlight pouring in through the window.

“Are we getting out?” Sean asked, eyes jumping between Matt and what he could see of the dog park over his shoulder.

Matt shrugged, “Only if you want to, Spoole.” Sean nodded at that, unbuckling his seatbelt and shifting to get more comfortable in the faux-leather seat.

“After we’re done eating. I don’t want dogs running at me because I have a burger in my hand.” Sean decided aloud, and Matt chuckled, grunting his agreement.

After they were done, they balled up their trash and climbed out of the car. Matt took the six steps to the trashcan to throw the remains of their lunch away before waiting for Sean. Sean took a minute to stand there and just  _listen_  to the traffic whizzing by behind him and blink in the high noon sunlight before shutting the car door and joining Matt on the sidewalk. They wandered around, shoulders brushing from time to time, completely content with each other’s silence.

“I have selective mutism caused by social anxiety.” Sean blurted out, but Matt didn’t even break his stride.

“I figured you had some sort of anxiety. Thank you for telling me.” He said, and Sean put a hand out to stop him.

“Wait, you  _knew_?”

Matt shrugged, scratching the back of his neck, “Well, no. I had no idea you had selective mutism, but I asked Adam about you after we met and he said that you were nervous around people. I know other people with anxiety, so it was easy for me to read the signs.”

_Of course Matt knew_ ,  _why else would he be friends with you?_  He tried to stop the thought in its tracks, but the train had already left the station, “So our friendship is based on you wanting to  _help_?” Sean demanded.

“No, no! God, no, Sean, I wanted to be your friend because you’re funny and smart and I enjoy spending time with you. None of the others mentioned your anxiety so I figured it was an unspoken thing. A taboo, for lack of a better word. I don’t care that you have anxiety. You could literally tell me right now that you want to leave Machinima and become a wolf-whisperer I would support you because that’s what friends  _do_.” Matt stared at Sean, hands outstretched but not quite touching, and Sean’s cheeks flamed.

“I – I’m sorry, I just – I don’t talk about it, so I – “ He stuttered out, struggling to find the right words, to explain his outburst.

“You don’t need to apologize, I get it.” Matt said, and Sean doesn’t remember telling his brain to do it but he was suddenly hugging Matt, and Matt was hugging back, body warm and solid and  _grounding_  and Sean’s mind was struggling between  _man Matt is such a great friend_  and  _I really want to kiss you_. But Sean just held on, not moving, and Matt let him.

On the drive back to the office, Sean expressed his fears of going to RTX.

“I’m not going to tell you not to worry, because that’s like asking a cow not to eat grass. But try to remember that we’ll all be there, and you’re safe with us. We’re your friends, Sean, just trust us. And if it gets to be too much, don’t feel ashamed for bowing out. Were you there the other day when Adam was talking about how he spent like, two hours in the staff-only bathroom at RTX last year just to get a break? No one expects you to talk and participate 100% of the time.” Matt assured him, and Sean took solace in his words.

If Sean stole Adam’s seat so he could sit next to Matt on the plane to Austin, no one mentioned it.

* * *

On Saturday, before their panel, Sean stood backstage, away from the others, hands wringing together, nails scratching at skin. He was trying his hardest to stop the feeling of the elephant on his chest, but the loud chattering of the crowd filing in wasn’t helping.

Sean was just about to make a break for the bathroom and skip the panel altogether when a pair of warm hands were on top of his own, curling around his fingers. Sean looked up and into Matt’s dark eyes.

“Matt, I – “

“No one’s forcing you to do this. If you don’t want to or can’t or something, no one’s gonna blame you.” Matt assured him. Sean nodded.

“I don’t think I can do this, with all those people sitting there, staring at me. My voice…” Sean trailed off. He could hear how weak his voice sounded, and he wasn’t even on stage yet.  

“Then you don’t. That’s okay. We’ll just hang back here and listen, that sound good?” Matt asked, already steering Sean into one of the folding chairs sitting backstage. Sean nodded again, staring at his hands as Matt walked over to the others. Matt came back quickly, though, and pulled up a chair next to Sean, flopping down into it and grabbing Sean’s left hand in his right.

“I told the guys.” He informed Sean, rubbing his thumb gently across the back of Sean’s hand.

“I’m sorry.” Sean sighed, bowing his head.

“Hey,” Matt bumped their shoulders together, “what did I tell you? It’s okay. We get it. I, frankly, care more about Sean’s health and wellbeing than a few disappointed fans. We never even announced who was going to be on the panel! Yeah, they’ll miss you, but they weren’t necessarily expecting you, either. Besides, now we can just chill for an hour with absolutely no responsibilities. That sounds awesome to me.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Matt.” Sean said, bumping back. They both dissolved into giggles that were nearly drowned out by the cheers of the fans as the rest of the guys took the stage. But with Matt’s warm and steady hand wrapped around his, Matt’s laugh ringing in his ears and his heart, Sean didn’t think the crowd was too-loud at all.

If Matt and Sean stood next to each other during their signing time, Matt’s hand in Sean’s under the table or their shoulders or knees pressed together or his arm draped casually around Sean’s shoulders, not one of the IG guys commented on it. They  _did_  comment, with varying degrees of subtlety, on Sean’s near-constant smile and how well he did interacting with the fans. Adam just tugged on the brim of his hat as they left with a big grin on his face, Lawrence patted his shoulder with a whispered “Good job”. Bruce and James slung their arms around the smaller man and proclaimed loudly that “Spoole is officially the biggest lady’s man, not one girl passed you up, Spooleo!” Joel insisted that they all go get drinks to “celebrate a fantastic signing, boys”.

After RTX, every convention or event that Sean went to, Matt went, too. No one even batted an eye at this development.

* * *

When all seven of them went to dinner with Hullum and Burnie to seriously sit down and discuss them leaving Machinima to become a part of Rooster Teeth, the cofounders of their future parent company had the decency to not ask why Matt stood so close to Sean during introductions. That is, until Kovic was driving them to the airport the next day when Burnie asked why he had seen Matt and Sean holding hands under the table during dinner.

And if every week there was at least one question for Q&A along the lines of “Why does Spoole seem so much quieter in person as compared to in videos?” that James resolutely ignored when compiling the questions together, no one said anything to Sean. These questions only increased when Sean started streaming regularly. It started with him just commenting about how he think it’d be fun, and (at the encouragement of James and Lawrence, who also stream at home, and Matt, who told Sean that he should try it but secretly thought it would be great to help him deal with his anxiety) he jumped in. And, crazily enough, people watched it. And liked it. And wanted to see more. And if Sean would take “bathroom breaks” or “drink breaks” to give himself a few minutes so he didn’t get overwhelmed by the constant stream of comments on the chat, no one had to know.

Sean would allude to his anxiety and selective mutism occasionally during streams, especially during Friday streams when he would drink and be a little more uninhibited with his responses to chat questions. This only ever raised more questions, but Sean would just ignore them for the most part. Some people thought he had anxiety, some people thought he was just a nervous person, others just didn’t even comment. And if someone got particularly persistent or nosy and started to make Sean uncomfortable, his mods knew to time out those prying people.

Sean would get texts a lot during streams, which led to light-hearted teasing from the chat asking who it was that was so important and made him smile so big. It was Matt, and he made sure to text Sean during every stream, just to see that smile (but Sean, of course, didn’t know his reasoning).

The best part about having the job he had was it was a great excuse not to stream if he had one of his bad days. A quick apologetic tweet about a ton of work and being super tired and none of his followers on Twitch bashed him for it.

* * *

The switch from Inside Gaming to Rooster Teeth, and subsequently becoming Funhaus, was potentially disastrous for Sean. Not only was it a new company with new people, but it was also a new  _fanbase_. Sure, lots of people were going to follow them from IG, but even more people would see their videos on the AH feed and then start watching them.

But the thing that Sean had this time was the fact that the six other people he would be primarily working with were arguably his six closest friends. No, wait, screw arguably. They  _were_ his six closest friends. They already  _knew_ Sean, and although Matt was still the only one who was outright told (unless the others looked at the medical forms they had to fill out when they became a part of RT) they still  _understood_. So the influx of new fans wasn’t a big deal. Sean appeared in videos, and was in the background of most videos, and if he stood a little closer to Matt during the new comments and f’art shows, well, no one commented (That’s a lie, lots and lots of fans commented but the guys collectively ignored them altogether. Of all the touchy-feely, way-too-close-to-be-socially-acceptable actions and inappropriate conversations they had, why was it  _Sean and Matt standing close together_ that set them off? Seriously, it boggled Sean’s mind. In the same video Joel nearly  _kissed_  Bruce, but no one was talking about that).

So, really, it was pretty smooth sailing. He had already met a lot of his new coworkers between RTX and the process of leaving Machinima, and the ones that he hadn’t met yet were also the people that really weren’t working in the same part of the company he was.

Sean was really enjoying himself in this new environment, too. They had the liberty to try new things and there wasn’t the excessive push of a bigger power telling them what to do and when to do it. They were involved in the Know, and were collaborating with cool, different gaming channels. There was only one problem.

E3.

Well, E3 wasn’t a problem until Ashley excitedly skyped one afternoon to tell them all that they would be hosting the Youtube stage throughout the entire event. And by they she meant the Know. And By the Know she meant  _also them_.

Sean’s blood immediately went cold at the revelation. This would be the first E3 that the general public could actually attend, the first E3 with Rooster teeth, and the first E3 in which Sean would actually have to  _talk to people_.

Unsure of what to do with this new information, Sean just bolted out of his chair and left the room, pre-emptive fear already clutching at his chest. Matt, who had been working with one headphone pushed back, heard the door to the office open and shut and looked up, only to see Sean staring helplessly into middle-distance. He pulled his headphones off his head and stood, rushing the few steps to get to Sean and grabbing the other man by the shoulders.

“Sean, what happened?” He asked, and Sean just shook his head and latched onto Matt’s arms.

“E3. We’re hosting with RT for the Youtube stage. Matt, I – I don’t know if I can –“ Sean broke off, and Matt was pulling him as he walked backwards, plopping Sean down into his chair before perching on the edge of the desk.

“You know we won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” Matt reminded him.

Sean sighed, “I know. The problem is I  _want_ to. I  _want_ to go to E3 and participate but actually  _interviewing_ people and  _talking_ with everyone  _watching_.”

“It’s not really that different from what you do now. Between videos here and streaming, you’re doing all of the same stuff. It’ll just be live.” Matt ran a hand through his hair before letting his hand fall onto the desk next to Sean’s, the latter immediately taking hold of it. Warm and strong and comforting and just about everything Sean ever wanted all bundled up into one man’s hand.

“I know, but just thinking about it is making me anxious, and I –“ Sean didn’t get to finish his sentence because suddenly he and Matt were nearly nose-to-nose. Sean sucked in a breath and stared, wide-eyed, into beautiful chocolate-brown irises.

“Then don’t think about it. C’mon, let’s get lunch.” Matt said, eyes boring holes into Sean’s soul for a moment before he stood and pulled Sean with him.

After they got back from lunch, all seven of them had a serious meeting concerning Sean’s participation at E3. Lawrence insisted it was his idea, but Sean had his doubts (Matt had texted Adam as they were leaving the building to get ready to have said meeting when they returned, but Sean didn’t need to know that). It was decided that Sean wouldn’t be doing any live/recorded interaction with people that  _weren’t_ RT employees. Sean was confident that although the thought of hosting E3 for Youtube made his chest constrict and his anxiety flare, he would be able to handle interacting with the guys (and Meg and Ashley) on camera.

* * *

The first day of E3, however, did a heavy hit on Sean’s confidence. A mix up with who was supposed to go where led to Sean sitting on the couch with a microphone in his hand next to a person who he knows introduced themselves but Sean couldn’t for the life of him remember. He tried to respond with his name but the elephant on his chest was making it extremely hard to function and instead his mouth just opened and shut like a fish. He clamped his jaw shut and settled for smiling at the man, whose attention was quickly taken by Ashley asking him a question on the other couch. His ribcage felt like it was shrinking as Blaine signaled to them that they were live. He tugged on the brim of his hat and waved when he recognized that Ashley was introducing everyone. He tried to push past the fact that the room was too-loud, and the lights shining down on them were too-bright and his leg started bouncing on its own accord, accidentally knocking into his mic.

Thankfully, it turns out that the mic wasn’t working, because after there was no immediate squeal of feedback, Sean realized it was off for whatever reason and sat back, leg jumping nervously as he fought the urge to vomit at how uncomfortable he was. As soon as the lights went down and Blaine cleared them to leave the stage, Sean mechanically shook the hand of the man sitting next to him and practically sprinted off-stage, making a beeline for the bathroom. He slipped into the family restroom and locked the door, chest heaving and too-tight. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and it took him a solid minute to get his hands to cooperate and fish his phone out to see who texted him.

Sean squeezed his eyelids shut and then forced them wide to get his eyes to focus on the screen.  _Matt_. Of course. Sean let go of a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

_“U ok? I can leave the switcher to Blaine if u need someone.”_ Ignoring the way that the message, just like everything else Matt did, set his heart fluttering, he typed out a quick response and shoved his phone back into his jeans.

A couple minutes of leaning against the sink with his hands and a quick splash of water on his face and Sean’s world stopped being too-bright and his ribcage finally felt like the right size again and decidedly  _not_ the size of a four-year-old girl’s.

Upon his return to the Youtube stage, Matt spotted him before anyone else and beckoned him over to where he was stationed behind a myriad of monitors and equipment. As soon as Sean was within arm’s reach, Matt pulled him into his side and wrapped his arm around his waist.

“You okay?” He asked again, just for good measure.

“Yeah I – I wasn’t prepared. Good thing that mic wasn’t working.”

“Well,” Matt glanced at Sean side-long, looking sheepish, “it may or may not have started working about two minutes after you realized it wasn’t. And it may or may not have been working up until the minute you were shoved up on stage.”

“Matt!” Sean admonished, slapping the dark-haired man lightly on the chest.

“What? There was a mix-up, you weren’t supposed to be up there, I could  _see_  how apprehensive you were, I wasn’t going to just stand here and watch.” Matt defended, and Sean beamed at him.

“Thanks, Matt. You didn’t have to do that.” Matt smiled over at Sean, lifting his hand from its spot on Sean’s hip to tug on the bill of his hat.

“But I did.” He told the younger man, but before Sean had a chance to respond and ask what on this tiny blue planet did  _that_  mean, Joel was jogging towards them and calling Sean’s name.

“Yeah, Joel?”

“We need to do some vamping on the side-stage. You and me, buddy, are you down for that? I can drag Adam up if not.” Joel asked, and Sean shook his head.

“No, I’m good, let’s go.” He said, grabbing Matt’s hand and giving it a squeeze before following Joel back towards the stage. Standing next to and talking to Joel about E3 stuff was basically like sitting next to Joel and talking about anything else, so it was much easier. Plus he could just make out Matt from where he was standing, who gave him a thumbs-up and smiled his big, created-just-to-make-Sean-melt smile every time Sean caught his eye.

* * *

After they wrapped for the day, Ashley approached him and apologized for the mix-up on stage that left him with a worthless mic.

“No, its okay, Ashley.” Sean assured her, giving her a small smile. Matt sidled up to Sean’s side, draping an arm across his shoulders and acknowledging Ashley with a smile and a nod.

“Do you want to do the Mirror’s Edge interview with Meg and I?” She asked, and Sean’s gut reaction was to tense up. Matt’s solid presence at his side and the hand gently squeezing his shoulder brought him back down to earth, and he consciously forced the tension from his shoulders before responding.

“It looked  _awesome_. I’d actually love to do that.” Sean heard himself saying, but couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Yeah, the new Mirror’s Edge looked  _fantastic_  and yeah, Sean really wanted to know more about it and  _talk_  more about it but be a part of the  _interview_?

Before he had a chance to dwell on it (or change his mind), Ashley was nodding and telling him that she would go make sure he was on the schedule and walking off.

“I can’t believe I just agreed to that.” Sean murmured, turning his head to look at Matt.

“Well I’m just as surprised as you are. But I know you can do it. And if not, your mic can always stop working.” Matt shot him a wink before walking off to where Blaine was standing and calling his name.

Sean wandered over to where Lawrence was, once again, talking to the others about petting cats in Shenmue and announced that he was going to be part of the Mirror’s Edge interview, which earned him smiles all around.

* * *

And yeah, the next day, Sean was absolutely terrified to get up on stage, but when the Senior Producer from DICE came over ten minutes beforehand just to chat, Sean felt some of his fear subside. His voice was pretty small and weak, but the mic would be able to pick it up and amplify it just fine and besides, it was E3, they’d been talking all day for two days – no one was going to think twice about a weak or cracking voice.

Matt stood right next to the stage as they were getting set up, and only backed up when Blaine gave the signal to start talking. Even then, he stood right next to Blaine, arms folded and watching Sean intently. Sean, for his credit, purposefully minimized his talking and did fairly well during the entire interview. As soon as they gave the live feed back to the side stage, it call came crashing back into his chest and he knew he wouldn’t be able to say anything more if he tried, but the absolutely  _elated_  smile on Matt’s face as Sean approached made it better.

“I am so proud of you.” Matt muttered into his ear, hugging him tight to his chest. Sean buried his face into Matt’s shoulder and clung back just as tight, letting Matt’s solid presence and steady breathing regulate his own. Matt eventually pulled away and regretfully informed him that he had to get back to work. Sean waved him off with a grin and let himself be bombarded by Joel and James, who pulled him to where they were sitting and chatted aimlessly. Sean just sank into his seat and gave himself a moment to digest and work on breathing normally, sandwiched between the two men.

When James had to get up for another segment, he patted Sean’s shoulder and parted with, “However long you need, Spooleo.” And Sean thanked his lucky stars that he, miraculously, had stumbled across such great friends.

That is, until a couple hours later when Bruce clapped his hand and asked, “Well, everyone ready for the meetup?”

Sean swallowed thickly and clenched his jaw.  _The meetup._ Of  _course_  he had forgotten about the meetup.

But then there was a warm hand encasing his and Matt was bumping their shoulders together, nearly throwing Sean off-balance but pulling him back by the hand last second and Matt was looking at him intensely and telling him that he’ll be there and he’ll hold Sean’s hand the entire time if he has to and Sean can’t help but think that maybe this meetup will be okay.

* * *

More than a few fans commented on the fact that Matt and Sean were practically joined at the hip the entire time, and when the two got separated due to the  _sheer number_ of people, Adam grabbed Sean and convinced him to climb onto his back, which everyone thought was probably the best thing to ever happen. Kovic nearly fell over laughing at everyone else nearly falling over laughing.

Matt eventually maneuvered his way back to Sean, and as they were getting ready to leave the meetup and go home, Sean’s hand found Matt’s, and that’s where it stayed. Even though they knew that the internet was going to have a fit over it. But no one really cared, because if Sean could talk when Matt was holding his hand, then who were they to say anything about it?

* * *

Sean and Matt wound up leaving the meetup, hand in hand, shoulders occasionally bumping together as they walked.

“I meant what I said earlier, Sean. I’m very proud of you.” Matt said, slicing through their little bubble of silence on the streets of LA.

Sean just hummed at him, thinking that was the end of it, but Matt pressed on, “I’m proud of everything you do. You’re like – a ball of sunshine. I can’t help but  _want_ to be around you, to be proud of you, to listen to your voice -” Sean’s breath caught in his throat, “- to just be a part of the life you’re living because it makes me so  _happy_. And maybe that’s selfish of me, but you make me happy, Sean.”

They stopped at a crosswalk and Sean turned to face Matt, whose brown eyes were trained on him and only him and Sean’s heart skipped a beat.

“You make me happy, too, Matt. Life is better when I’m with you.” He admitted, and although his word choice was dreadful, Matt seemed to understand what he was saying because his face lit up and his stupid Sean-melting smile appeared and Sean felt his own lips curl up on their own accord.

“Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Oh,  _yes_.” Sean breathed, and Matt was suddenly incredibly close and his arms were wrapping around Sean’s waist and his lips were pressing against Sean’s and his beard felt kind of funny against Sean’s own but  _wow_ something that Sean didn’t know he was missing just slotted perfectly into place on that street corner in downtown LA.

When they pulled apart, Sean honest-to-god  _giggled_ , which set Matt off into a loud, raucous bout of laughter and Sean couldn’t be bothered to think of what the pedestrians walking around them thought of these two grown men laughing hysterically with their arms around each other because he was just too  _goddamn happy_.

* * *

And if the next day, after Sean and Joel did a side stage segment, Sean walked into Matt’s waiting arms and planted a kiss on his lips, no one commented, because they all knew it was meant to be.

(Bruce and James did, however, pull out their wallets and hand money over to Adam, Lawrence, and Joel because there  _absolutely_ was an inter-office bet on when it would happen and they were so sure it was going to be  _after_ RTX that year. Bruce would later playfully admonish them during speeches at their wedding reception that they both owed him twenty bucks  _plus interest_  for not being able to hold out until he won. Matt would just shake his head while Sean giggled his Matt-melting giggle, placing a soft kiss on the younger’s cheek and smiling his Sean-melting smile).

**Author's Note:**

> (crossposted from tumblr)  
> merpwrites.tumblr.com


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